Made with Oakshott

After a bit of a hiatus I returned to my Made With Oakshott project to finish it off. It shrunk a bit in the wash: the quilt top finished to 64" across, and after laundering it's 60".

I had aspirations to quilt a big spiral radiating outward from the star block in the centre, but once it was basted I balked at the prospect of wrestling the whole thing through my tiny Featherweight to start from the middle -- it feels almost as heavy as the machine!

Instead I used a red-and-orange variegated Aurifil thread to quilt an allover diagonal grid, following the bias edges in the flying geese.

The texture of the quilted grid de-emphasizes how the top was actually pieced, and creates a sort of trompe l'oeil effect where the flying geese read as half-square triangles.  I used Soft'n'Toasty batting, a bit heavier than my usual favourite Quilter's Dream Request, which filled out beautifully after a run through the wash. The binding is pieced from 2.5"-wide strips cut from leftover Oakshott Rubies in no particular order. I attached it to the quilt from the front by machine, and tacked it down on the back by hand.

The backing is the same Essex Linen as the background fabric on the quilt top except one corner that I pieced from 6" Oakshott squares for a little pop of colour in the field of grey.  Thanks again to Lynne and Michael Oakshott for the opportunity to play with these beautiful fabrics!